Burger King Cancels Facebook Ad Campaign

Such is the calculus Burger King Holdings Inc., known for its advertising antics, has been encouraging on Facebook, asking members of the social-networking site to “de-friend” 10 others in exchange for a free Whopper. Facebook members can “friend” people—invite them into their circle of contacts—and also de-friend them.

Now the fast-food chain has pulled the plug on the campaign, which launched Jan. 5 and was dubbed “Whopper Sacrifice,” amid concerns from Facebook that it publicized severed friendships.

Whoppersacrifice.com

The campaign, which featured tag lines such as “Friendship is strong, but the Whopper is stronger,” grew rapidly on the site, as thousands of members jilted each other for burgers. Each time someone de-friended someone else through a special application, Burger King published an update on both people’s Facebook pages. That helped spread the word—but ran afoul of the site’s protocol.

“We encourage creativity from developers and companies” using the site, a Facebook spokesman said in a statement, “but we also must ensure that applications meet users’ expectations.” Facebook disabled the notification feature, and the two companies discussed revising the application, but Burger King decided instead to end the campaign.

“While Facebook was a great sport, they did ask for changes that would have resulted in a different approach to our application, counter to what we developed,” a Burger King spokeswoman said in a statement.

A Burger King Web site, Whoppersacrifice.com, says, “Facebook has disabled Whopper Sacrifice after your love for the Whopper sandwich proved to be stronger than 233,906 friendships.” Users who de-friended 10 others and submitted their mailing address before the application was disabled will still qualify for free Whoppers, the Burger King spokeswoman said.

“Whopper Sacrifice” was created by Burger King’s agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, owned by MDC Partners, and Refresh Partners, and follows several provocative campaigns for the No. 2 burger brand. In December, it conducted taste tests against McDonald’s Big Mac with so-called “Whopper virgins” with no fast-food exposure, and this month it is airing commercials about the “Angry Whopper,” raised by a supposedly sadistic farmer.